April 19, 2026: Supporting Journalists = Supporting Democracy Hungary, #NoKings, Holding press and power to account April 5, 2026: FCC Chair Spells It Out Attacks against journalists while bowing to the wannabe king, PLUS our heroes for February March 26, 2026: MAD Calls Out FCC Chair Carr for Treating Trump Like
This is addressed to people, like myself, who care deeply about the outcome of our coming elections. I hope to convince you that, despite that fact, your donations are much better spent elsewhere. Where? I cover that in this post. I do recognize, of course, that candidates need money, but
In the last few months, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has illegally overhauled its “SAVE” system into a massive unlawful tool for performing citizenship checks that now relies on inaccurate data from the Social Security Administration and threatens millions of Americans’ voting and privacy rights. This is an appeal
These is a list in formation of organizations that I think are worth contributing to to protect and restore our democracy. For the rationale behind this list, please see "Why donating to campaigns is a poor use of your limited resources" Election related: These groups in key states
I just heard a reasonably sensible analyst suggest we are not in a Constitutional crisis because Trump has not refused to obey any court orders. A judge has found the administration violated a court order but more importantly, even if Trump strictly obeys every court order, there are many other
Today, December 1 is the first day of winter by any reasonable definition. More on that, shortly. But first, let's embrace it. It is not my favorite season but variety is the spice of life and having variable seasons is really nice. Each of them has things to
Trump is trolling us with nominations like Matt Gaetz for AG and Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense. He knows it is a no-lose strategy. By pushing the envelope as far as possible, he may get some truly ridiculous picks confirmed. "Ridiculous", rather than what I first wrote
Fact checkers are getting a lot of, well-deserved, criticism. But the criticism is missing the forest for the trees. Even if fact checking were done well, it would not provide what voters need. What they need is something that goes beyond individual facts and looks at roll lies, and true-but-misleading
Another important factor in the NYC mayoral campaign is public campaign financing. As you probably know, the U.S. "Supreme" Court has ruled to give money predominant influence in our politics. But there still is room for various levels of government to amplify the voices of non-oligarchs. The
To be honest, I was not a huge fan of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) when I first heard of it. I still don't think it is the best system – I prefer SCORE voting. But RCV is really showing its strength as the 2025 NYC Mayoral primary field shapes
"Officials who use their public positions for private gain threaten the integrity of our most important institutions. Greed makes governments—at every level—less responsive, less efficient, and less trustworthy from the perspective of the communities they serve. " Opinion of Justice Jackson, with whom Justice Sotomayor and Justice
The last effort to amend the U.S. Constitution was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that was opposed and failed. [fn 1][fn 2] It made it seem that is has become impossible. But the history is that there are spurts of amendments – four ratified between 1910 and 1920 – and
There's a great bill in Congress to protect journalists. I don't have time to write much about it now so I'll just to good posts and resources to support it. Please contact your senators to urge them to move the PRESS Act forward. PRESS
News
This is Curmudgeonly, a brand new site by Jonathan. I don't have specific plans for this site but do have a lot of thoughts on various subjects. Sometimes I do the hard to work to get them to a publishable form and they will appear elsewhere. This site